


Our Letters To the Sea

by TrishaCollins



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 02:36:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12049542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: For as long as he could remember, his mother had written his father.





	Our Letters To the Sea

Henry had grown up at the feet of pirates on the sea. But he had more of his father's softness than his mother's fury. 

There were times he thought the wrong parent helmed the Dutchman, because his mother could rage against the seas like no other, and his father seemed sad and composed, lost to the waves that were a prison to him.

He did not think the lack of land would trouble his mother.

But he was careful to never say as much to anyone, those thoughts were for the inside of his head, not to be spoken. Never to be uttered in the air. 

Mother had written father for as long as he could remember, bottles dropped over the side of the ship periodically, or shoved into the pocket of a man she intended to kill. Father's letters came more rarely, but they would be long when they arrived, pages and pages of crinkling paper. 

Mother would hide away with them for hours, pouring over every word until she had ironed them into memory. 

Which was why he was here, now, with a little bottle in his hand sealed with wax, peering into the dark water of the dock. There was a method to it, he was sure. Somehow, his mother knew how to make certain her letters arrived to father.

But she never told him it, and so he was lost, staring into the waves, trying to decide if he should just drop it and forget he had tried. 

But he wanted a letter from his father, those letters made mother smile, and laugh, and forget for a time that she was sad.

He wanted a letter to hold to himself, a treasure that he could have and hold. 

"Please take this to my father." He whispered to the sea, tentative. "I would be very grateful." 

He dropped the bottle, and it bobbed in place for a moment, rocked by the sea. 

He watched it forlornly, glancing back to the hulk of his mother's ship, which was quiet and nestled against the dock. Only the watchman patrolled, and he had snuck past him without issue. 

When he looked back at the waves, his bottle and message were gone. He leaned to peer under the dock, assuming it had merely slipped under, and got a rather forceful push backwards from a wave that seemed to come out of nowhere. 

Wet, confused, and heartsick, he made his way back to his mother's ship. 

*~*~

His birthday was a strange time for his mother, he remembered most of them fondly, though she often retold her rage of the day he had been born more times than he wanted to hear.

She had intended to give birth on the sea, so that his father could be there. But a hurricane had raged and screamed for the days before, and it had been too dangerous to launch any boats. The rage of the sea had pounded against the windows, and he had been born into wind and fury. 

His mother had been convinced that the sea had not wished for him to be born upon it, or had not wished for his father to be there. 

Her crew posited a different suggestion, and that was that he was lucky indeed that the storm had arrived before his birth, and so were they. For if the storm had arrived when they were on the sea, nothing could have saved them. 

The pains he had given his mother had saved the crew from drowning, and witch child that he was they put that upon him.

They thought he did not know that name, that 'witch child' was a fond epitaph rather than a curse. 

But it was true, he reasoned, when he had been on his mother's ship there was rarely more than a sluice of rain that was easily navigated. When he was not on his mother's ship, the danger came and ripped the masts and tore the sails.

He gathered up the flowers and stones he had selected - all of them from inland, near the house, and dropped them one by one over the side. A few of the flowers floated, but most of them were sucked down right away. "Please can my father be here today." He whispered to the quiet waters beneath the hull. "I would very much like to see him." 

He dropped another stone, a rough edged piece that had flecks of something that glittered in the light, and stared into the water, hoping for a responce. 

None came, and his mother realized that he had escaped the cabin and came looking for him.

"What are you doing, Henry?" She asked, lifting him into her arms. 

He couldn't tell her that he'd been talking to the sea, or else she might be angry. "I was watching for ships." He told her, wrapping his arms around her neck and letting her carry him back inside.

"Remember, you need to stay inside when we are underway, I do not want you to tip over the railings."

He thought that would never happen. The few times he had fallen into the sea, the sea had an odd habit of putting him back. Dumping him into the sand or right back to whatever dock he'd fallen from. 

His mother never believed that he'd fallen in at all.

"Sail!" The watchman called from the rigging. "Coming fast!" 

Mother started to rush back to the cabin with him, but he craned his neck. "Mama! It's papa!" 

The sea had listened after all.


End file.
